What is RSS Feeds and How Can RSS Feeds Help Your Business

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds allow users to subscribe to and get notified when there is new stuff on your blog.

You can think of RSS as the paper carrier that delivers your paper, while your real content is the paper.

For text-based posts, RSS feeds include the title of the post and a teaser paragraph or two and their purpose is to tell visitors in brief what the topic of the post is.

If the topic of the post is interesting, chances are that the visitor will go to your site to read the whole post.

One of the hottest new tendencies in organic traffic building is video syndication. Video RSS is similar to text RSS, the only difference is that you are syndicating videos, rather than text.

RSS feeds work best when you update your content periodically – i.e., once a day, once a week, etc. but of course, you can use them even if you post on an as-is basis, rather than according to a schedule.

Similarly, to newsletters, RSS feeds are one more way to keep your regular visitors connected to you. In fact, RSS is the paper carrier that helps to deliver your newsletter to your visitors.

Using RSS is easy but if you are a novice, you might not be able to figure exactly how to do it.

 

So, Here Are The Steps That Can Help You Get Familiar With RSS

Step #1

Sign up for a free account with RSS readers like Google Reader, Yahoo, Bloglines, or NewsGator.

Open a free e-mail account with Google.com or Yahoo.com because you do not want the entire newsletter coming to your regular e-mail. It also helps you to distinguish your business email from your research e-mail.

Step #2

Choose the sites you want to subscribe to. This means that you go to your favorite sites and find their RSS feed – Normally it is an orange button like this one  . It can also come in other shapes and form. Most website will include phrases like ‘Click Here To Join My Newsletter.’

1. If your favorite sites offer the join my RSS feed reader for you to subscribe, just click the icon of the RSS feed and you are done.
2. If your favorite sites do not offer join my RSS reader icon but they have RSS, you need to right click the icon, copy the URL of the RSS feed into your RSS reader program.

Enjoy the new posts you get daily!

Step #3

Why Do I want to Join instead of creating my own?

I know you are wondering why you should sign up when you’re trying to create one…

The reason is, for you to become a great newsletter writer; you need to start reading other people’s newsletter first to learn how it works – this is your real-life learning process.

Remember the swipe file I was talking about earlier…

This is where you will get it.

It is cheaper than joining a monthly research newsletter especially if you are just starting out.

It is advisable to be a reader first before adding RSS to your site. This will allow you to learn from experienced users – you can learn the headings, teasers, and other processes just by watching what others do.

Note: Most hosting company has newsletter template as part of their package. Click the link to get tips on how to create Newsletter.